10 Tips to Attract New Readers to Your Blog
Blogging is a means of putting down your thoughts and ideas for others to read and take some sort of action. The reasons behind blogging are not really what matters much unless it is a chore or the feeling like you would rather go to the dentist and have four teeth pulled than write an article. What really matters is that you know why you are there, writing some really good content that drives people to do something, a call to action.
New bloggers struggle to get readership as much as intermediate or even long standing bloggers. Growth is a big part of your blog as lead generation and finding new people to do something not only pays the bills, it also intensifies your passion for blogging. I know that there are those out there that believe that they would have the same passion for blogging if they were not making a dime or of they were making millions. Ok, I trust you but if the readership is down, sales are down – ultimately the blog goes down. It is a cycle that we do not like to think about but encompassed in passion is drive and when there is no drive, the passion is lost and the preverbal wall is hit and little by little the blog articles decrease until one day you realize it has been a month and nothing has been posted.
Bloggers alike will agree that growing your blog never stops. Sure, you may be happy with your 200 or even 2000 or so readers each day as you have probably connected with each one of them in one way or another and built an online community around your blog. But what if you could reach 25 or 50 new readers each day and you can interact with them and then their friends and their friends. If you are a follow the numbers person this is music to your ears as watching the traffic numbers increase is really something pretty to look at. How do you grow your blog, isn’t just writing great content and pushing it out to your regulars enough?
10 Tips to Attract New Readers to Your Blog
1. Social Networking Sites
The ones that come to mind are Twitter and Facebook. You are more than likely already doing this. What about LinkedIn and industry niche platforms? LinkedIn is for job seekers right? Think again. It is a business platform where you connect and share information with others in groups and by answering questions. People will buy from people they know – and read blogs of people they know.
2. Webinars
Webinars that you tune into live almost always have a hashtag to follow on Twitter. You are exposed to others who share your interest of the webinar subject and can connect with new people by sharing thoughts about the webinar on Twitter. Connecting with people is exposing yourself to them and building a relationship.
3. Forums
Oh how I love Forums. American Express Open Forum, Third Tribe Marketing, LinkedIn Groups. Forums pack the most punch when it comes to meeting, engaging and helping others. Talking with people and helping them solve a problem is not only exposing your knowledge, willingness to help another but having your signature line have your company name, blog link and possibly an email address, is that inviting subtleness that lets them know that you have a blog and also that you are open to receive communication outside the forum.
4. Monitor Trends
Monitoring trends and getting your article up before everyone else is no easy task however, if you are on top of what is going on and keep a close eye the just when the trend starts or right after it peaks, you can get great exposure to the article and your blog. Follow Twitter trends directly from your twitter page or a freehandly tool is Trendistic. Remember, Google loves new, fresh content.
5. Read and Comment on Blogs
This is not just the a-listers. Find up and comers and read and and comment. They will be very appreciative and return the favor. They will relate to you well as you share a common thread – both up and comers and searching for ways to get new traffic. Friends read friends.
6. Read Other Commenter Blogs
Ever see the same person over and over commenting on a blog but you never really paid much mind to see if they have a blog? Find it! If they are loyal to the blog that you both are reading and commenting on, they very possibly will be loyal to those that read and comment on theirs.
7. Exceptional Content
Do you homework and write great content … content that targets keywords and also asks people do do something. The content can be the best in the world however if no -one is reading it then it is pointless especially if it does not drive it back to providing value for your business. Yes, it’s about the readers but giving them the information and them clicking off to go on to somewhere else is not providing any value to your business. Value is determined by your business strategy and what you want out of it. Are you solely looking to build your online community? Are you looking to attract new customers, new people to comment on the blog? Determine why you are blogging and then write with that in mind.
8. Interests
You have other other interests outside of work right? Well, so does everyone else. You never know who may meet that could become a customer from a shared love of futbol. It is always very easy to find fans of teams that we love and come together as one but yet when it comes to business, it seems as if we lose our ability to connect easily and freely.
9. Local Community
There is a world on the other side of the computer that is waiting for you to emerge. Going to meet-ups, networking events, sporting events is another way to meet new people and get exposure to your blog. People will be curious to see what this blog is all about especially if they are a blogger. Competition is high to see if your blog matches up to theirs.
10. Article Marketing
Ezines, GoArticles are two very popular sites that you post your articles to with the understanding that the articles may be and most likely will be republished. The articles are required to be republished “as is” with your bio paragraph as well copyright information.
There are many ways to grow your blog and increase readership. These have proven to be effective for me. The best advice to grow your blog is to first to identify why you want to grow your readership. While this may seem like it is obvious to increase sales or get new clients, the articles are not always written with this in mind. An article that is a list of how to or ways, etc. needs to have enough usable information for the reader to go and put it into motion. If it works for them, they become a loyalist. An article with an affiliate link needs to entice the reader enough that they have to click the link. Growing your blog is a long term strategy as it involves time and a whole lot of commitment. People want to connect with the author and learn more about them and know that they really care about their readers by interacting with them. We know that people love to share any mentions of themselves and who they are friends with. Be that person.
What have you done to grow your blog? What has worked and not worked for you?
Suzanne is the founder of Kherize5.com, an advertising and social media marketing agency for small businesses and publisher of a blog that provides advertising and marketing tips.
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Best tip is 5 & 6th this really help in many ways…it build a relation between blogger..gives you backlinks…and apart from all this gives You a Bunch of New Readers as the Post Highlights.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 9:54 am
@Lucifer,
5 and 6 are so powerful if you are looking to gain awareness and more readers. It is easy to peruse blogs, type in a comment and move on but what sets a blogger or even a person with respect to an another author of a blog apart is reaching further by taking the time to look a the commentor’s blog and the others that comment on blogs that we read an comment on.
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Good advice. I did not know about GoArticles, thx for that pointer. As for articles, I would also recommend placing article like content on Scribd and using their auto twitter notification.
.-= rita Turkowski’s last blog ..Will content drive the state of the art in game development? =-.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 9:59 am
@rita Turkowski,
goarticles is similar to ezines. Article marketing is a traffic generator however with many there is no interaction or availability to comment so it loses that aspect. I feel that a blog article many times is written very well but how it is perceived and responded to with comments always tells the story. Many times the comments and the discussion with readers in the comments is what makes the article better.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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Suzanne really great blog tips. Concise and valuable. Thanks for the tips!
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Suzanne;
A great list and a very informative article – thanks for posting it. In response to your question about how we have grown our blog, the answer is by using Inbound Marketing Automation, or IMA.
We divided the process of using IMA, into 4 steps:
1) Attract more visitors to our website through SEO, Social Media Marketing or SMM, and PPC
2) Engage their attention with industry leading content (website copy, white papers, videos, podcasts)
3) Qualify these visitors by grading their profiles and using their digital footprints to rack up a score and hence “know” their quality. And, while we are qualifying them, nurture them from cold leads to hot prospects with multi-touch drip email campaigns.
4) Automatically feed these hot sales ready prospects directly into our CRM and automatically notify the assigned sales rep (based on product or territory or whatever…).
Our website contains a Resource Library of white papers, tools, videos and an extensive glossary, all covering the above 4 steps in more detail.
http://www.inbound-marketing-automation.ca
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 10:04 am
@Eric Goldman,
Great list of how you have grown – as for other readers, once you get the readers depending upon what your goals are which many are to turn them into customers your tips are very useful and what has worked. Monitoring their activity on your site and seeing areas where you can convert is what turns a reader into a customer.
Great advice here!
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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Suzanne,
Thanks for the reminder of basic tools to keep in mind while building a blog following. I enjoyed the article and need to be more vigilent about implementing some of your suggestions.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 10:07 am
@Nanette Levin,
And they are basic but some that we forget or more often put on the back burner as we get tied up with other things. It as about knowing what works best for in what platform but the fundamental thing is being there. Generally I keep to the thought of being there before anyone but then always being there.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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Communication is a really important part of gaining traffic. If you interact with just one reader, they’ll take what you discussed away, share it with friends and then their friends will come along and visit your blog too. Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing strategies after all.
.-= Jasmine Henry from System Fail News’s last blog ..System Fail News (New Feature) > Topic Round-Up! =-.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 10:11 am
@Jasmine Henry from System Fail News,
WOM is by far one of the best strategies – and growing that is being a part of the community and letting people know you are there. I think of it as when I comment on a blog I am adding to that community but also secondary to that I am letting every reader of that blog know that I am around which we know whether it be a name or a brand if we hear or see it enough we are compelled to look at it and find out more – that when you meet expectations or peak curiosity enough increases WOM
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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Great post. I gain followers every time I publish a blog and circulate on LinkedIn. The post must have relevance for the members of the group so it’s prudent to research the groups before you join.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 10:17 am
@Jason Cobine,
Love LinkedIn groups. Such a great place. LinkedIn in general with all their technology advances has become such a worthwhile place. I get new friend req with so articles but also some emails that are such great conversations.
Thanks for the kind words and also the mention of LI as readers should take advantage of it and all of its offerings.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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I have implemented some of your power tips here and I can attest that they do wonders on a blog. The key here is to be persistent and work hard.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 7th, 2010 at 10:20 am
@Walter,
Thank you soo much for supporting these tips. A BIG part of blogging is the off blog work that we sometimes fail to mention. Working hard on the blog and off it will get results with the reward of working harder to communicate more with other off blog and still write great stuff that people will read.
Great advice on the working hard as we know it takes hard work and determination to have a great blog.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Matches Job Seekers with Employers =-.
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Hi Mikkel! I used to read and leave comment in others blog. Sometimes, the comment in others blog attracts some traffic to my blog too. I really like this method to attract readers to my blog.
.-= KS Chen’s last blog ..Win the Prizes for SEO =-.
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These are all really good tips. Thank you for sharing them. I am working with a client who has started a blog for senior women (over age 70). Their audience is not all over Facebook and Twitter and couldn’t spell Webinar if you spotted them the w-e-b-i-n-a-r. Do you have any tips for this unique, less computer savvy audience?
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Great suggestions. In fact, I just tweeted a reference to this post. Keep up the good work.
Merle
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Suzanne Vara
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April 15th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
@Merle Tenney,
Thanks so much for sharing the post and also taking the time to read and comment.
Getting new readers to your blog is not always easy with the hundreds of blogs that are out there. Catching the eye of readers consistently and giving them information that is useful to them will bring them back and get them to share with their friends/followers.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Tool Places Resumes on Top of the Pile =-.
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Some great little tips here, which I will be sure to try and follow. Cheers.
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Suzanne Vara
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April 15th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
@Simon | Profit Duck,
Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time to comment.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Tool Places Resumes on Top of the Pile =-.
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@Merle Tenney,
Thanks so much for sharing the post and also taking the time to read and comment.
Getting new readers to your blog is not always easy with the hundreds of blogs that are out there. Catching the eye of readers consistently and giving them information that is useful to them will bring them back and get them to share with their friends/followers.
.-= Suzanne Vara’s last blog ..LinkedIn Tool Places Resumes on Top of the Pile =-.
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These are all really good tips. Thank you for sharing them. I am working with a client who has started a blog for senior women (over age 70). Their audience is not all over Facebook and Twitter and couldn’t spell Webinar if you spotted them the w-e-b-i-n-a-r. Do you have any tips for this unique, less computer savvy audience?
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